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Macrocosm (episode)
When viruses grow to a meter in length and begin attacking the crew of Voyager, Captain Janeway and The Doctor must retake the ship. Summary :"Captain's log, stardate 50425.1. Mr. Neelix and I have completed our three day trade mission with the Tak Tak, one of the more unusual species we've encountered in the Delta Quadrant. We are ''en route back to ." After returning from a difficult first contact with the Tak Tak, Captain Janeway and Neelix return to ''Voyager to find it adrift in space. After hailing the ship a number of times to no avail, they land the shuttle, and attempt to investigate the problem. Moving round the ship, they discover that the crew are nowhere to be seen and still no one is responding on the communication systems. They are also disturbed to find tools where a crewmember was performing maintenance, meaning that he/she simply dropped what they were doing and ran. They find Samantha Wildman's quarters deserted and hear a buzz in the corridor. They emerge just in time to see the shadow of something. They hear a loud crash and find a hole punched in a transporter pad, a hole with slime in it. Now armed with phasers, they both head in the direction of the bridge. However, while traveling in a turbolift, a tendril suddenly bursts through the bulkhead and squirts Neelix with some kind of fluid. The two abandon the turbolift and attempt to reach the bridge through the Jefferies tubes and Neelix begins to feel very unwell. Janeway turns her back for a few seconds and something begins to approach the Talaxian. Janeway hears a scream and when she returns to the place she left Neelix, she is horrified to find him gone. On the bridge, Janeway is able to access internal sensors and determines the crew are being kept in the mess hall and the cargo bays. While she is checking the senors however, we see something small buzzing towards her unnoticed, which stings her. Janeway feels the sting, but decides to head to the mess hall. In the mess hall, Janeway finds a large number of the crew all grouped together, including Commander Chakotay and Ensign Harry Kim, Suddenly, Janeway is attacked by a large, multi-tendriled creature. She is able to destroy it, but is now beginning to feel the same symptoms that Neelix felt earlier. Janeway heads for sickbay. When she finally pries the doors open, The Doctor sticks a phaser to her chin before realizing who it is. He explains that Voyager was attacked by a macrovirus. The Doctor explains that while they were away, Voyager received a distress call from a Garan mining colony located on a nearby planet. The aliens had suffered some sort of disease that had incapacitated almost their entire population. Eager to try out his mobile emitter on his first away mission, The Doctor beamed down to the planet's surface and attempted to heal the aliens. Once with the aliens, he discovered that they were being attacked by a unique form of virus that could grow so large they could be seen with the naked eye, something totally new and very dangerous. Having discovered that there was nothing he could do for them without his lab, The Doctor returned to the ship with a small sample but didn't realize he'd also brought one of the macroviruses with him via the transporter. He tested the macrovirus in his lab and, to his dismay, found out that it grows to become a flying organism of about two meters in length. A short time after he discovered that he'd brought the macrovirus with him to the ship, various crew members became infected when Lieutenant jg B'Elanna Torres discovered that one of the bio-neural gel packs had become infected and it subsequently burst all over her, releasing the virus. Very quickly, The Doctor became the only uninfected crew member but was unable to leave sickbay as the virus is attracted to the heat his holographic body gives off, continually attacking his mobile emitter. The Doctor completes the antidote and cures Janeway of the virus. They decide to distribute the antidote in gaseous form using the environmental systems. Janeway heads for the environmental controls while The Doctor heads to cure the incapacitated crew. However, the virus attacks his emitter again and he is forced to take refuge in a shuttle. Suddenly, the ship is rocked by fire from an approaching starship. The Tak Tak delegate Janeway had been speaking to recently begins to fire on Voyager. Janeway hails the Tak Tak vessel and demands to know why he had attacked Voyager. He explains that he had discovered that Voyager was infected with the macrovirus and he has orders to "purify" them at all costs. He also tells her that he has already "purified" the Garan mining colony by destroying them. He then explains that the Tak Tak has had problems with this virus before, but never found a cure, and that their only hope was to destroy Voyager. Janeway pleads with the Tak Tak to stop firing on her ship. He agrees, skeptically, but gives her only a short time to come up with a solution. However, main power is off all over the ship and The Doctor informs her that the only things working are items with independent power systems like the shuttlecraft and holodecks. Janeway remembers that the virus is attracted to the heat given by a hologram and lures all the viruses to the holodeck where they infect all the holo-characters. Janeway then throws an antigen bomb into the holodeck, destroying it and the virus. The Tak Tak are appeased by her solution and end their attack as Janeway promises to share the antidote with them. The crew is swiftly returned to full health and Voyager and the Tak Tak part company. Memorable Quotes "I may never put my hands on my hips again." "You had no way of knowing you were making one of the worst insults possible." : - Captain Janeway and Neelix, on her habit of putting her hands on her hips "You've got a high fever, fluid in your lungs." "Lung." : - Captain Janeway, with Neelix as he starts to feel the effect of the virus' attack. "Well... one down, ten billion to go." : - The Doctor "What's that?" "You don't want to know." : - Tom Paris and The Doctor, in the mess hall listening to macroviruses pass by the door. "We'll be right with you." : - Captain Janeway, with The Doctor, to the viruses pounding on the door of sickbay as the two prepare to leave "I've been studying the ships infrastructure and I'm familiar with most of it, but how do I get there from here?" "Jefferies tube 11, take a left to section 31 and straight down past the Tractor Beam Emitter until you hit deck 10. Get out of section 3 and follow the corridor all the way around until..." "...until I hit the shuttle bay. Then I crawl through access port 9, go past three air locks and then two decks down. Environmental control is at the end of the hall. Now I remember! ...who designed this ship anyway?" : - The Doctor and Captain Janeway "Good Health." "Good Health." : - Tak Tak captain and Janeway, with her hands on her hips Background Information * The beginning of this episode is quite similar to . * In [[A Briefing with Neelix|Good Morning, ''Voyager]], Neelix mentions an inversion nebula ''Voyager will be passing in the coming weeks. We see Voyager encounter an inversion nebula in . * Some good continuity points in this episode include a reference to "Neelix's missing lung" ( ), and that holodecks run on a separate power source ( ). * This episode features the first appearance of (non-compression) phaser rifles in Star Trek: Voyager. * One of the Tak Tak "gestures" that Neelix' performs (wrists together as if bound with hands opened in supplication) is reminiscent of a gesture performed by the "People of Vaal" in . * The macroviruses were generated entirely by CGI, employing the same technique used to create the Hanonian land eel at the beginning of the season in and paving the way for Species 8472 at the end of the season in . * This episode establishes in canon that Talaxians only have one lung and klingons have redundant stomachs. * Among the costumes and items from this episode which were sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay, was the costume of Albie Selznick. Video and DVD releases * UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 3.6, . * As part of the VOY Season 3 DVD collection. Links and references Guest star *Albie Selznick as Tak Tak Consul Co-star * Michael Fiske as Garan Miner Uncredited co-stars * Carl David Burks as Lieutenant Russell * Tarik Ergin as Ayala * Eric Hunter as a command division officer * Louis Ortiz as Ensign Culhane * Unknown performers as ** Alien waiter ** Three volleyball players References ambassador, American Sign Language, antigen bomb; biocontainment field, bioelectric interference, biofilter, chromolinguistics, dermal regenerator, extensor muscle; Gallagher, Garan; [[A Briefing with Neelix|Good Morning, ''Voyager]]'', granite, guinea pig, Indiana, infrared radiation, Kaplan, Marie, Klingons, Ktarian, lavafly, level-3 force field, level 4 quarantine, Leyron, macrovirus; mess hall, micron, mucilaginous compound, myelin regenerator; pneumatic conduit; pot roast, pyroclastic, Rinax marshlands, Rinax, Sector 38, skiing, synthetic antigen, Tak Tak, Tak Tak homeworld; Tak Tak starship, transporter buffer; warning buoy; Wildman, Samantha |next= }} de:Makrokosmos es:Macrocosm nl:Macrocosm Category:VOY episodes